


School Daze Redux

by Ilthit



Series: Trope-Bingo: Round Two [6]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: 1980s, Alternate Universe - High School, Character Study, Dark, Dreamatorium, Friendship, Gen, Teenagers, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:38:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abed renders a 1988 high school scenario.</p>
            </blockquote>





	School Daze Redux

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this comment meme](http://hlwim.livejournal.com/2009.html) and the prompt "Teen!Jeff meets teen!Abed", and also Trope-Bingo.
> 
> I wrote the first part of this on 8 July 2013 and expanded it significantly on 15 September 2013, which also bumped the rating up to mature.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for graphic sexual violence discussed in the locker room.

"I was a four in 1988," said Abed. "The timeline is off."

"For me too, by about five years," said Jeff. "Come on, do I look 40 to you?"

The playing field expanded as the Dreamatorium rendered the environment in greater detail. The bleachers started to take on more definition, right down to the notches and marker scribbles Abed remembered from his own high school. An artist works with what he knows.

"Also there's the wardrobe. The jeans jacket, sure, everybody wore one in high school, but you know very well my ears aren't pierced."

Abed decided he liked the shiny row of polished studs on Jeff's faded blue jeans, as well as the cognitive dissonance of a blue mini-hawk with the confident Winger slouch. Maybe Abed should make an 80s period film at some point. No, he should totally make an 80s period film. "I think it's because your personality is defined by opposition," he told Jeff. "It's just easier to go the punk lite route than imagine a kind of an evil Marty McFly."

"I wasn't evil."

"Hardly anyone ever thinks they are." Abed picked at the fabric of his jeans. "I don't know why I chose this setting. It's not exactly my happy place."

"Sometimes you have to go to back to a bad place, just to see if you can make it better." Jeff dug around in his jacket pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. "I also don't smoke."

"Just go with it."

Jeff leaned back on one arm and lit up. "To answer the question you're not asking, yes, we would have been friends. Any timeline, Abed. Any period. I just wish you'd let me make my own fashion mistakes."

They sat together in easy companionship while the grey skies broke into a drizzle and the football team ran in formation around the field to the tune of the coach's shrill whistle.

—

For this scene Abed was invisible, a fly on the wall, a camera without a tape in. He already knew how the story would go if he was in it, right down to the bruising on the back of his neck where his head hit the locker shelf before it knocked back and the contents clattered all over him in the tiny cramped space.

For some reason the Dreamatorium had decided to supply him with jock versions of Garrett and Pavel. Garrett stood up tall, meaty arms and legs straight and strong. Pavel sprawled over a locker room bench, tossing a football from hand to hand.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Garrett, voice low and twanging. “I didn’t force her to do anything. Fuck bitches, man. Her old man was so mad, he looked like he was gonna deck me.”

“I was doing this girl once and bled all over my dick, but, you know, she fucking loved it.” Pavel bounced the football of a locker, making a sound like gunfire in the nearly deserted locker room. “I said shit, did my dick actually break you, and she started crying and just kept saying ‘don’t stop’. It was so gross.”

“Should’ve just locked her feet behind her head and given it to her harder. They stop complaining then. Right, Barnes?” Garrett punched Troy’s arm and Troy flashed him a Cheshire grin, gone as soon as he turned away.

Abed followed Troy out of the locker room, down the crowded hall, past Annie Adderall’s metallic smile, while Pavel giggled his way through another anatomically unlikely anecdote. They parted at the bike rack and Troy took off down the lane.

Abed located him again a Kingdom Hall, using his nail to scratch transient bat logos on the soft paper of the publication the congregation was reading out, his thumb resting over a paragraph about sexual purity. His kicks drew circles on the floor until his mother nudged him, prompting him to sit up. His white button-up was flawless.

There would be a girl, Abed knew, a nice one, but he didn’t want to see that part. He liked his own Troy better.

—

“Go away,” Annie said. “I’m studying.”

“You’ve been studying for ten hours straight.” Abed pulled up a chair opposite to hers at the library table and sat down.

“So? What’s it to you? I have a lot of work to do, so would you just—”

“You should go out with me.”

She shut up. He couldn’t read her expression, but she sat up straighter. Her hair was a massive cloud of curls and her nails were bitten to the quick. One of them was bleeding.

“On a date,” he explained, just to make sure she understood. “Arcade, if you like. Or bowling.”

“Not a movie?”

“Only if it’s The Little Mermaid. You don’t need anything too intellectual right now.”

“The Disney version? That’s only coming out next year.” She smiled, and Abed could see the metal wiring forcing her teeth in place.

“You should see it when it does. You’ll love it.”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty grim for a fairytale.”

“Don’t be so sure. Maybe this time she’ll get to keep her legs.”

They looked at each other for a while.

“Out of those? Bowling,” she said. “French croissants first and you can never tell my mother.”

“Deal.”

—

He’d known he’d have to go in deep for Pierce. The 1980s had passed like an afterthought of the 70s for him, steeped in disappointment and the final end of youth. The only thing Pierce had liked about it was the renaissance of luxury and women’s dresses that glittered like city lights.

Abed found him by the school bulletin board, pinning up a poster advertising Poetry Nite, open mike at the student lounge, bring your own work, this week’s theme: eternal womanhood. Pierce pocketed the rest of the tags and ripped a number off the bottom of another poster, this one for a band audition. His hair was over-long and slicked back, and his eyes hidden behind tinted shades. He turned to look as Shirley strode purposefully down the hallway, curvaceous and queenly in her yellow and green wrap dress, young Andre hurrying to keep at her heel.

“Does anyone ever show up?” Abed asked.

Pierce looked around and frowned in confusion, as if Abed was a flowerpot that had begun to quote Shakespeare. “What?”

“Poetry Nite. Is it popular?”

“It’s the social event of the week for the school,” said Pierce. “You know, for the intellectual sort.”

“But you’re not that smart.” Abed pointed out. “You have social skills, but you lack empathy. You’re too wrapped up in your perception of self to realize when others can tell you’re faking. You’d be better off running a wine-tasting club — something expensive, but simple.”

“Say that one more time, motherfucker,” said Pierce, and Abed realized he was the bully in this scene.

—

He found Britta necking with Starburns in a boys’ bathroom stall. Abed washed his hands at the sink and listened to the sounds of scuffling and open-mouthed kissing behind the blare of Styx from the small cassette radio parked just inside the stall, shoved about every now and then when the high heel of a leather boot struck its side. Abed was drying his hands when Ben Chang walked in in a brown tweed suit and yanked the stall door open. “All right, kids, detention, both of you. Four hours this Saturday.”

“Fascist!” Britta shouted as Chang kicked the radio across the floor. Styx died out with a crack of hard plastic.

“Please, make my day. Four hours on Saturday, two next Thursday. Would you like to add to that?”

“Leave it, babe.” Starburns held Britta back. “Not worth it.” 

The rage on her face drained into shock. Chang smirked his way out, and Britta shook Starburns’ arm off, stalked to the sink, grabbed the smudgy metal with both hands.

“We still on for Friday?” Starburns asked.

“In your dreams. I can’t believe you let him get away with that.”

“Babe, I had an audition on Thursday.”

“Fuck off to your audition and your lizard’s vet appointment or whatever, Alex. I thought you were cool.”

Starburns banged the door hard on his way out.

“Funny that it’s you who’s changed the least,” said Abed. “Unless it’s Shirley.”

“Do I know you?”

Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was so young, skin smooth as a child’s. Of course, she was a child. They all were.

—

“I can’t do this.”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I can’t fix any of this. Even if Annie and I were friends she’d still try to squeeze her round peg into a square hole. And she’d get bored of me when I got bored playing the role.”

“Why are you so intent on fixing other people?”

Abed tilted his head and regarded Shirley across the red plastic of the cafeteria table. Her hair was piled high on her head and her make-up was just a little too bright. She’d get it right; she’d hit her stride in the 90s. Kids moved behind her like ghosts. The layout of the room looked a lot like Greendale. “This was never about the 80s,” he said. “We adjusted to your timeline. I wonder why that is?”

“Maybe I have something you need.”

“The lesson I’m here to learn.” He nodded. “I couldn’t figure you out, you know. You’ve never told me much about high school.”

“I was mean, Abed. I made fun of everybody behind their backs, because I was sure everybody was saying the same kind of things about me, and I wanted to go first. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“But you don’t do that anymore?”

“Only because I choose not to. It’s hard work going against your worse nature, but that’s the thing, sweetie. You can’t control what other people say or do, but you can control your own actions. You are responsible for those.”

“Perspective won’t stop other people locking me inside things, or leaving, or taking my things, or making me see a doctor.”

“Well,” said Shirley, clutching her orange woven bag closer to her chest, “maybe sometimes you can choose to kick their asses for it. Control your own boundaries. You help people who want to be helped, and for the rest of them, just make sure they know they have an option.”

“I’m not going to convert, Shirley.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

Abed considered it. “I’ll take it.”

Shirley’s smile broke into squares of dark green, lines of orange like light breaking through.

—

There needed to be a reason why the movie was set in the 1980s, but the era was not short of dramatic events to hang a theme of disillusionment on. Abed got to work.


End file.
